Down to Birth #225 | Free-Birthing as a Woman of Color: How Nichollette Chose One Extreme Over Another
Maternal mortality for black women is three times higher in the United States, at almost 70 deaths per 100,000. As a woman of color, Nichollette Jones was motivated to protect herself and her daughter from the risks and protocols associated with hospitals, especially during Covid, which showed a sky-rocketing of maternal mortality statistics across the board in the U.S. Unable to cover the cost of a home birth midwife, she determined her next-safest option was to have her baby at home with her mother and partner. Nichollette spent her pregnancy learning the most common childbirth emergencies and how to handle them, but mostly, she nurtured a deep trust in her body and her ancestral wisdom to give birth with ease and without complication. And that she did! As you'll hear, Nichollette has a hard time not laughing through the joyful memories of her empowering home water birth story.
During the second part of our discussion, we get into the psychology/mindset Nichollette practiced, which likely contributed to her positive outcome beyond luck, which is always a factor in any birth. Nichollette demonstrates the degree of responsibility it takes to birth without professional labor support. We also explore the heaviness of the free-birth option: What "drives" some women to free birth when it wasn't their first choice upon becoming pregnant? What was Nichollette's 'Plan B' if a complication had occurred? Are most women reasonable candidates for free birth? And, did our ancestors really birth alone, free-birth style, or what did their support actually look like? The United States medical system is already lacking in its support for midwife-attended home-birth transfers; it's nonexistent with free birth.
Today's episode gives us a joyful scope into one woman's birth, while raising more serious considerations around the lack of safe birthing options for American mothers, and especially women of color.
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